The present invention relates to a process for interactive communication between two users each furnished with a telephone apparatus of the switched telephone network, via the Internet network.
It also relates to a system implementing such a process.
It finds a particularly important although non-exclusive application in the field of low-cost voice telephone communications.
Systems are known which make it possible to use the Internet network to send and receive voice communications in real time with an opposite party connected to the Internet network, thus simulating the telephone.
The attractions of these systems resides in their low cost of use for the parties.
Access to the Internet network or to an equivalent network in fact generally costs the price of a local connection, in order to call the local access provider, and a moderate monthly subscription, i.e. less than 100 F. a month in France in 1996.
If the connection is to a distant party, this represents a considerable saving relative to the price of a normal connection at the long-distance or international tariff.
However, such systems have drawbacks.
They require in fact the presence of a powerful microcomputer for each party, a modem and a sound card, thus considerably limiting the number of potential users of the system.
Moreover they allow only persons having a permanent connection with the Internet network to be called directly.
In other cases, it is therefore necessary to go through the following procedure.
The users firstly agree on a date and time of appointment, as well as on the Internet server which will serve as meeting point. At the prescribed moment, the users must subsequently connect to the Internet network and then to the predefined server.
Finally, the opposite party must be searched for in the list of users of this server. If his name does not appear, it is necessary to wait, it being possible for the communication to be set up only after the presence of the opposite party has been detected.
This is a complex procedure.
It can be explained since the users which are not permanently connected to the Internet network have no fixed network address (IP address). It is therefore impossible to call them directly. The called user must therefore be warned, beforehand, and must himself log on.
An improvement to this system is currently envisaged by various operators.
The caller logs on to the Internet network, then to a special server geographically close to his destination party.
He then provides this server with the telephone number of his destination.
The server subsequently calls the destination and the communication can then be set up. In certain cases, the destination need not have any Internet equipment, the server taking charge of the interface with the conventional telephone.
However, this process also has drawbacks.
Indeed, it requires a server or local access provider capable of calling a user, this posing technical problems and connection billing problems.
This process also requires that the Internet address of the server or local access provider of the destination party be known, which necessitates that a complex routing system be set in place, or else a system limited to a small-size destination table, of which the telephone number and address of the provider will have been configured by the caller.
Finally, if the destination party changes access provider or simply his point of local access to the same provider, the configuration of this destination has to be updated for all potential callers.
The present invention aims to provide a communication process and system which are better than the prior known ones at meeting the demands of practice especially in that it dispenses with the requirement to use a microcomputer and its accessories, replacing them with a small standalone interface device which connects between an ordinary telephone set of the switched network and the analog or digital ordinary telephone line.
This device thus makes it possible to supplement any telephone set with the possibility of operating through the Internet network in an extremely simple and user-friendly manner.
The complexity of the call procedure is also eliminated by virtue in particular of a novel way of tackling the problem.
Thus, the traditional way of ironing out a problem posed by an Internet application, is to search for what will enable this problem to be solved actually within the Internet, its protocols and its services.
Thus, currently existing software has solved the call problem by using a conventional Internet service: IRC (Internet Relay Chat).
This service enables any two Internet users to be put in contact via a server (called an IRC server). This is the call process described earlier.
A gateway, for example, will also be used between the Internet provider or server and the destination party.
In the case of the present invention, a novel approach has been used, by putting calling and called interface devices into direct telephone contact for a few seconds, these exchanging the information required to meet up subsequently on the Internet network automatically or semi-automatically.
For this purpose the invention proposes in particular a process for interactive communication between at least two users each furnished with a telephone apparatus of the switched telephone network, via the Internet network, characterized in that, each telephone apparatus being directly connected locally to an associated interface device,
a first user, the initiator of the communication, dials the telephone number of the second user on his telephone apparatus, for communication via the switched telephone network, while signalling to his associated interface device that he wishes a communication via the Internet network,
the interface device of the first user sets up the communication with the interface device of the second user via the Internet network, the telephone apparatuses of the two users being on-hook,
once the communication via the Internet network has been set up, each interface device signals this to its associated telephone apparatus,
each of the users then takes his telephone apparatus off-hook and communicates interactively with his opposite party via the Internet network.
In advantageous embodiments, recourse is had to one or other of the following provisions:
the first user hangs up his telephone apparatus immediately after having signalled to the associated interface device that he wishes a communication via the Internet network, the said communication being subsequently set up automatically by the first interface device with the second interface device;
the first user obtains the telephone communication with the second user via the switched telephone network, signals to his opposite party via the said switched telephone network that he will continue the communication via the Internet network, and hands over to the interface device associated with his telephone apparatus which then sets up the communication with the other device associated with the telephone apparatus of the second user via the Internet network, while the said users respectively hang up their telephone apparatuses;
in order to communicate with one another the two interface devices exchange a respective appointment code relating to a predefined server via the switched telephone network, subsequently cut direct communication via the said switched telephone network, connect to their respective Internet access provider and then to the said predefined server and search for their appointment code, obtain their respective addresses (IP) on the Internet network, disconnect from the predefined server and then set up the telephone communication between the users via the said Internet network;
in order to set up the communication, the first interface device connects to the Internet network, obtains its address (IP) on the said network and, whilst remaining connected to the said network, sets up the communication with the second device via the switched telephone network and transmits its address (IP) thereto, and then the two interface devices disconnect from the switched telephone network, the second device connects to its Internet network access provider and then sets up the communication with the first device by virtue of the address (IP) obtained previously via the switched telephone network, in such a way as to allow communication between the devices via the Internet network;
the communication between the users is by voice;
the communication between the users is of the video type.
The invention also proposes a system for interactive communication implementing the process described above.
It also relates to a system for interactive communication between at least two users each using a telephone apparatus of the switched network, via the Internet network, characterized in that the system comprises at least two local interface devices, each connected on one side to the said telephone network and on the other side to a respective telephone apparatus, each device including:
means of storing and processing data transmitted by the telephone apparatuses,
means of processing and sending signals devised so as to connect the said device to the Internet network and communicate with another device,
means of receiving the signals,
means of processing the signals received,
and means of signalling the setting up of the said Internet connection to the associated apparatus.
Advantageously, the system includes means of means of [sic] voice compression/decompression.
Also the system advantageously comprises means of creating and identifying an appointment code in a predefined server.
Also advantageously the system includes means of connection and of disconnection of the switched telephone network and of the Internet network, in correlation the one with the other.
Advantageously the invention also proposes a process and a system of the type described above implementing an accelerated procedure for so-called xe2x80x9cV23xe2x80x9d. fast connection, V23 being a standard of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU).
To do this, when connecting the first device to the switched network, a clocked frequency of 1300 Hz is transmitted which, if it is detected by the receiving device, triggers a carrier of lower frequency, for example 390 Hz.
The use of this carrier greatly speeds up the procedure.
There is also advantageously proposed a communication system, characterized in that it additionally includes fast means of connection which are able to transmit and detect the clocked 1300 Hz and means which are able to use a carrier wave of smaller frequency to speed up connection.
In another advantageous embodiment the process and the system are further improved by providing an original means of allocating IP addresses.
It is in fact difficult but necessary to ascertain the IP address allocated to an Internet user.
There are in this regard chiefly two ways of accessing the Internet: a permanent connection and a so-called xe2x80x9cdial-upxe2x80x9d episodic connection.
In the case of a permanent connection, each machine connected has a fixed and unique Internet address (IP address) within the entire world.
In the case of xe2x80x9cdial-upxe2x80x9d connections, the Internet access provider has a range of IP addresses which are reserved for him and which he allocates one by one to the users who connect up. Hence, one and the same user will therefore have a distinct IP address allocated to each of his connections.
The reason for this system is that the Internet addressing space is congested and it is not possible nowadays to allocate a fixed address to each user or item of equipment which can be connected.
In the telephony application it is necessary to ascertain the IP addresses. This is because a user who initiates a session must have software capable of contacting the other destination user, and therefore he needs his IP address.
The currently proposed solutions consist in publishing the address in a WEB page.
Software does in fact exist which makes it possible automatically to publish the IP address of a user who connects up in a personal WEB page for this user, which page can then be consulted by anybody on the Internet who needs this address.
Such a system has drawbacks. Publication on a WEB page is slow and greedy in terms of resources (data transferred and disk space on a server). Additionally, it is not easy to automate the fetching of this address for diverse applications.
Another method consists in using Internet electronic mail to exchange the variable IP addresses, using the fixed xe2x80x9ce-mailxe2x80x9d addresses of the users.
Here again there are drawbacks. The forwarding time of an e-mail is totally unforecastable and may be very long. The e-mail protocol is moreover complex to incorporate into an arbitrary application.
The basic principle of the communication process according to the advantageous embodiment of the invention described below is to allocate a fixed and unique serial number to any device which can be connected to the Internet and which desires to use the protocol, and which is stored in an apparatus referred to as an xe2x80x9cIP Finderxe2x80x9d apparatus which is connected to and can be interrogated via the Internet network.
As soon as a device is connected to the Internet, it despatches an information packet to this apparatus. This packet contains:
the IP address,
the serial number of the device,
a session number (automatically incremented by the device with each connection).
The term session should be understood to mean an attempted communication between two devices.
When another device needs the IP address of the first device, it despatches a packet to the IP Finder apparatus containing the serial number of the equipment whose IP address it seeks.
The IP Finder apparatus responds to it immediately with an information packet containing the sought-after IP address together with the number of the device.
The updating of the sessions of the devices is carried out during the initial telephone contact.
The device from which the need for connection arises in effect contacts, according to this embodiment of the invention, the destination device in a direct way and retrieves its current session number.
This exchange of sessions is carried out for example as follows:
direct telephone call and exchange of data between modems, or
direct telephone call and exchange of data in voice frequencies, or
call on a service of the radio-paging type.
In all cases, once initial contact has been set up, the destination device knows that it must connect to the Internet and despatch its packet to the IP Finder apparatus.
Advantageously, the process according to an embodiment of the invention therefore proposes to allocate a fixed and unique serial number to all the devices, which number is stored in at least one connected apparatus which can be interrogated by the devices so as to allow the calling device to retrieve the IP addresses of the called devices.
Also advantageously, as soon as a device is connected to the Internet, it despatches an information packet to the said apparatus, the said packet containing: the IP address, the serial number of the device and a session number, and when another device needs the IP address of the first device, it despatches a packet to the said apparatus, and the said apparatus responds by despatching an information packet containing the sought-after IP address as well as the number of the device.
Thus the invention proposes a system implementing one and/or the other of the above provisions, characterized in that a fixed and unique serial number having been allocated to each device, it furthermore includes at least one apparatus comprising means for storing the IP address of the devices which connect up to the Internet network, and their serial number, and means for searching for and transmitting a sought-after IP address and the serial number of a device corresponding to the request from another device.
The present invention also relates to interface devices such as described with reference to the text and to the figures.
The present invention will be better understood on reading the description of the embodiments given below without any limitation being implied.